Historian’s response to this column“…. Now there is no doubt that since the 1990s, Remembrance Week has put the Canadian role in the world wars and other conflicts on the front pages. Even The History Channel slows down its endless sagas of ice road truckers, antique pickers, and storage wars to feature some excellent documentaries and films on Canadian (and other) military events. This is all to the good, in my eyes. But no one who has ever looked at the provincial school curricula or university history department calendars could ever believe that military history has obliterated all the other varieties of studying the country’s past. Payne wants family stories and local history to have their place in our past, and so do I. If she looks at what is being published in academic and other journals, if she sees what books are being issued by both small and large presses, she would have no fear for the future of peacetime Canadian history ….”